The term cabinet is used herein in its broadest sense and is intended to include any type of cabinet in particular appliances, particularly automatic washing machine and/or portable dishwashers and the like type of equipment.
The use of retractable support members, such as casters that, as required, may be moved into operative position to support a cabinet is not new. Many arrangements have been proposed and used in the past--see for example, Canadian Pat. No. 368,609, issued Sept. 7, 1937 to William or very early Canadian Pat. No. 3168, issued Mar. 3, 1874 to Procter. Retractable casters are also shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,126,306, issued Aug. 9, 1936 to Anderson, or U.S. Pat. No. 2,192,337, issued Mar. 5, 1940 to Tiffany. These devices exemplify some forms of retractable wheeled undercarriages wherein casters are movable between retracted position and a supporting position to permit the cabinet being supported to be moved from place to place with the casters in supporting position and to be relatively fixed in position when the casters are lifted to retracted position.
It is also well known to provide retractable self-stabilizing legs onto equipment such as automatic washers. One such self-adjusting leg system is shown in Canadian Pat. No. 481,260 issued Feb. 19, 1952 to Morrison. This arrangement provides a relatively stable support for the cabinet even though the floor on which it is supported may be sloped within limits.
Canadian Pat. No. 121,789 shows another form of retractable self-adjusting leg or foot members for an automatic washer. In this system, each of the leg members is provided with a pin that rides in a slot, with the slots sloping downward and toward each other so that the legs as they are extended move toward each other. The legs move downward into supporting relation by movement toward each other with each leg finding its proper depth or degree of extension relative to the other leg.
The latter two devices provide self-adjusting features to provide a stable support on an uneven surface but do not permit easy movement of the appliance or cabinet when the legs are retracted.